Services

Corporate Sustainability Reporting (GRI Framework)

Our Corporate Sustainability Division builds on our technical and commercial expertise in the domain of energy and carbon management to help our clients in achieving their Sustainability goals. With sustainability being accepted as the new paradigm for businesses, there is an urgent need to engage with the issue and proactively assess the risks involved in the business arena. The focus for setting a sustainability process in place is on measuring the performance indices since, “what gets measured, gets managed”.

Besides regulation mandated compliance, there are other factors that driving the businesses into action with regard to sustainability. Some of these are as follows:-

1. SEBI mandated public disclosure of publicly traded companies.

2. Wal-mart and other FMCG retailers driving down the sustainability.

3. Shareholder demanding greater transparency and accountability.

4. Reputational and brand image value.

5. Differentiation tfrom competitors.

What is GRI based reporting?

Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) is a not for profit institute that works on developing and disseminating the globally applicable guidelines on the sustainability reporting standards, that helps companies in reporting on their economic, environmental and social performance. The aim of the GRI Guidelines is to assist reporting organisations and their stakeholders in articulating and understanding contributions of the organisation to sustainable development through their reports. The current reporting standard framework is G 3.1 and shall be upgraded to G 4 in May 2013.

Why GRI based reporting?

GRI reporting framework is the most comprehensive reporting framework for sustainability performance of various companies. Organizations use GRI to help measure and benchmark performance, both against their own targets and externally. Management can use the GRI indicators to encourage employees to understand and contribute to progressively better performance. The major advantages of using a GRI based reporting are as follows:-

1. The most comprehensive guidelines for organizations addressing performance on social, environmental and economic indicators and also how an organisation is reporting to its stakeholders.

2. They guide an organisation’s approach to ‘proving’ its impact.

3. GRI is used widely internationally as a generally accepted reporting framework and, as such, provides a method for increased comparability.

4. The Guidelines are flexible and can be used in different sectors and geographical contexts.

5. The Guidelines support and integrate other tools such as Social Accounting and the AA1000 Series.

The GBES Way

GBES helps its clients by providing them with the option of initiating a bespoke service that provides them with insights on initiating their sustainability reporting process. For the companies that are already on the path of sustainability reporting, we can help them in analyzing their sustainability value proposition and closing the gaps in the reporting process.

For companies already proceeding with their sustainability reporting initiatives, we can provide services that would involve the following activities:-

1. Review of the present Sustainability Plan.

2. Gap assessment that would identify the leakages in performance.

3. Alternatives analysis and assessment would provide a holistic plan for undertaking action in additional areas for improving on the key performance indicators.

4. Prioritization and implementation of the initiatives that provide better value for the organization’s overall sustainability goals.

As partner’s in your journey, we provide increased integration and cohesiveness of sustainability practices in overall company strategy and operations and the ability to turn assessment phase learning into effective, integrated action steps.

Sustainability Reporting in India

Sustainability reporting is growing in India with more and more companies coming on board, announcing their intentions of growing sustainability or incorporating sustainability into their core operations. As of 2012, there are 81 in India that have been reporting according to the GRI guidelines.